The Gringotts Fiasco
by ThisLittlePiggyStayedHome
Summary: Here are two seemingly unconnected pieces of information: 1. You'd have to be mad to try to rob Gringotts. 2. No one had ever accused Bakura of being the model of sanity (Or where Ryou and Bakura decide to liberate some galleons from their imprisonment in Gringotts)
1. Chapter 1

Author/Me: Okay, okay this IS my comeback, I suppose. I haven't honestly thought about posting anything for a while, but I looked over some of my stuff on here (yikes!) and decided I ought to at least put up some more VSoS. So anyway, I decided to make myself feel better by writing this silly little thing :D

And I know everyone has done this - or alluded to it - but I charge each of you: would Bakura seeing the little rhyme outside Gringotts and not take it as a personal challenge? Honestly?

(So this is set a couple years after the final battle of Hogwarts)

Dirkrog was a goblin of the most efficient kind. He had worked in Gringotts capably for forty-eight years and had detested humans for about the same length of time. Contrary to popular opinion, goblins were not born with the need to sneer at humans. Humans, _especially wizards_, were just that easy to loathe.

What galled him most was their puny attempts to rob a goblin-run establishment.

They had never succeeded. Even when Harry Potter had taken a golden cup from Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, the goblins had very obviously let them get away with it.

But he supposed the ignorant children must have been unaware of what every Auror knew: no goblin ever fell under the Imperius curse. It didn't affect them like it would a wizard or Muggle.

The token protest they had put against the teenagers had _obviously_ been to fool Voldemort. And regarding that pompous wizard…

There was the silly idea among wizards that he was the biggest, cruellest, most powerful fool of their time. Really? How was he different than that embezzler in Malta? How was he more powerful than Flamel - who stole a more complex form of immortality and abused it for hundreds of years - and then denied any other his powers? No goblin ever forgot that Nicholas had turned against them and denied them not only wands but tried to take away their basic earth magicks all those years ago.

The wars that had lasted for years between the wizards and Dirkrog's kind had shown goblins one thing with certainty: all wizards were selfish and one was as bad as another.

The only reason they were not all treated as equal threats was because Dirkrog and his kind knew that the majority of wizards were idiots and they seemed to dislike goblin sensibility as much as goblins disliked their human frivolity. As long as they kept their foolishness to themselves, goblins need not become embroiled with their messes.

But again, the feeble-minded magic-users had to make their messes on goblin establishments. Did they not see the sign outside? The little rhyme that told them what an infant goblin could easily comprehend? Maybe they ought to make it clearer and write over it:

DO NOT FUCK WITH US

Three young idiots had been thrown into jail after their measly attempt at robbing Gringotts. (They hadn't even gotten to the carts). They were obviously getting ideas from Potter's biography. The girl had even gone under Polyjuice potion like that Granger girl had, those few years ago. Their invisibility cloak was cheap and obvious, however, and the idiots forgot that there are other senses than eyes. Also, being invisible in a thick crowd does still make you visible. No large space of blank air in a crowd is natural.

Dirkrog knew that the world would never change when stupid wizards all but encouraged their kind to essentially go and piss on goblin land. Even the Aurors taking the three hoodlums away had been fighting smiles, the unprofessional slackers.

(They would be fighting more than smiles when they found the Shock-Rune Dirkrog had slipped in the ringleader's pocket. After they hurried him over to St Mungo's. It wasn't an act of malice so much as a warning to any others that would try after them. Why didn't those wizarding ponces understand that?)

It had been a normal, terrible day. Dirkrog had maintained a civil tongue despite it all. Professionalism remained intact but that was often all. He would never be pleased in the presence of snotty wand-wavers who acted like their shite was galleons.

This was why when a timid-looking young wizard under a ratty hood shuffled forward at the tellers, Dirkrog's snarled smile was especially terrifying. Three families behind the boy (who must have been no older than 13 or 14) scuttled backwards and ran towards much longer queues across the room.

"I'd like to see my account, please," said the boy bouncing on the balls of his feet, "Under the name Frost."

His estimation of the pitiful human rose a fraction. This meant that instead of being the pathetic, disgraceful-waste-of-flesh-and-dirge-of-civilisation Dirkrog had assumed him to be, the boy was actually just a disgraceful-waste-of-flesh-and-dirge-of-civilisation. This was very generous of him, as he knew little about the boy's fortitude under more extreme circumstances than passive aggressive smiles that had won the goblin's passive aggressive smile award three years running, but Dirkrog liked to think he was very generous by nature.

The boy had not cowed and there was little fear in his voice, although Dirkrog could have sworn that he had been muttering 'such a bad idea' under his breath a few minutes before. If anything, the boy sounded wearily resigned.

"Have you a key?" Dirkrog asked blandly, posture casually unfriendly.

The boy's hood fell back over his forehead as he went on tip-toes and pushed a little key toward Dirkrog, who looked it over carefully.

"It all seems to be in order," he said slowly, after letting the boy wait several minutes, just to let the anxiety build.

Idly, he thought they ought to change the segment in Studies of Homo sapiens where they said white hair was only for elderly humans. Maybe it was a rarity? He had never seen it before on a child.

The boy blinked huge eyes at him. They were dark and sticky-sweet like that wretched caramel stuff one wizard had apparently smooshed his key into. "Really? I mean, ari-thanks! I've never…uh…done this before."

And they should also change the part where it said that humans possessed some small manner of wits.

Dirkrog felt the dull urge to start a charity for donating brain-cells to mentally undernourished wizards. This was not a new urge, but sense told him that because every wizard was a mentally undernourished wizard, it would take more than a few goblin braincells to alter all their absurd minds.

But this track of thought was cut off abruptly because the boy did something so ridiculous that it made him want to reassess living on this planet.

The boy smiled brightly at him.

SMILED.

AT.

HIM.

Dirkrog caught himself from gaping or taking out the stupid child's eye with a coin. Something was severely wrong with the human's instincts. You did not beam at someone who was exuding an air of murderous dislike.

"I will take you down to your vault," he managed, voice coolly collected. This was quite unlike his rational mind which was feeling the abuse of catering to such irrational beings. Wizards! They could all Avada Kedevra themselves, the whole lot of them!

One of his fellow goblins made a mouth-twitch when he got up from behind the counter. Then another one did. One of them even curled long fingers back in the hand-symbol of _'should-we-cover-for-the-body?'_

It was as good as if they had doubled over laughing at his expense.

Tightening his jaw and thrusting his nose skyward, he briskly turned away from them and began to head toward the nearest cart. The boy caught up easily with his longer legs.

"Great!" said the unwanted human that Dirkrog was not going to damage or maim in any way, quiet fellow goblins. Yes, Dirkrog may have wished to maim every human he passed by, but he was far too professional for that.

The smile had not withered up on the boy's face – it hadn't even floundered a little. His huge eyes were crinkled with that smile, and their largeness and softness and general goodwill reminded Dirkrog vaguely of some sort of woodland creature.

"Oh," said the mouth beneath the huge eyes, "I never introduced myself – how impolite of me! I'm Sir Steve King – the Frosts were on my mother's side."

The boy had a lisp when he said his name so it sounded like 'thta thteif'.

Probably a psychological response from a childhood lisp that only reappeared with certain words, thought Dirkrog, sensibly.

As long as he didn't hurl on the carts, Dirkrog would be able to ignore him during the ride. But unfortunately, the King boy, Steve (pronounced 'Thteif') thought that goblins were fascinated by personal information. He wouldn't stop talking as he climbed into the cart.

"I'm just visiting for the summer and I need some serious sight-seeing funds! Where do you go for sight-seeing? Do you like the beach? I don't really. They have oysters and oysters are creepy. Not like thestrals - now those are beautiful!" At this point, cartoon hearts all but formed in his eyes.

Dirkrog had the feeling that unicorns would flock around this kid. All the more reason to despise him. Unicorns were notoriously bad at character assessment.

He started the cart without warning and hoped Steve (or 'Thteif' as he was calling the twerp in his head, damn the boy), would catch a bug in his open mouth.

If Dirkrog had half-turned his head when they whooshed forward, he would have seen the makeshift cloak and hood fly back from his client's shoulders. He would have seen the glitter of gold against his muggle t-shirt. He would have seen the boy's eyes purple and narrow under the torchlight.

But Dirkrog did not half-turn. He was a sensible goblin that didn't like whiplash.

(Sneak Peek :P This will probably be like 5 chapters long.

I thought I'd write something where Bakura and Ryou have some sort of interaction immediately. Bakura hasn't appeared in my other stories yet so I thought I'd bring him and Ryou along for this little ride :) pun fully intended.)


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So. I was bored and someone told me to write a chapter. I said sensibly: "but hey, I haven't written a chapter for any of my stories in ages. I'll get the tone wrong. I've forgotten most of the story lines I'd developed. It would just be disappointing to see me try to fumble my way through it!"

Other person: "Fuck you, how does it end?!"

So this was created. (True story, bro.)

Recap of the characters so far:

Dirkrog was a patient and well-meaning goblin who cared deeply about others -

Wait, scratch that. That's wrong. Let's try again. Ahem.

Dirkrog was a patient and well-meaning goblin.

Nope. Still not right.

Dirkrog was a well-meaning - well,

Dirkrog was a goblin, okay.

Lispy Sir Steve King was an innocent doe-eyed 'charment bebe' with a less innocent doe-eyed hitchhiker.

More on that as this story unfolds.

* * *

In hindsight, Dirkrog knew there were things he might have done differently in his life that would have altered it drastically for the better.

Loathed, dimwitted creature no. 12*, the floppy-hatted old wizard who always picked his nose noisily and obviously before handing over his Gringott's key, was a prime example of history that should have been altered. *(he must have a name, Dirkrog knew, but he had put so many years of effort into forgetting it that the string of obnoxious syllables no longer came to mind).

On the rare occasion he'd permitted himself to be distracted by fantasies (for he was a sensible goblin who seldom even ventured outside the realm of rationality, let alone vacationed across its borders) Dirkrog had imagined feeding the man's toothy face to the dragon Zvezdnivezni one vacant eyeball at a time.

If Dirkrog had done this in his first week working at Gringotts, he would never have been assigned permanently to the tills.

He _would have_ been summarily tried for homicide, if caught, probably locked away in solitary confinement for a decade or so, and then disallowed to ever approach humans again under Goblin Law.

The only reason Dirkrog had not taken advantage of this glorious win/win situation was because it was neither subtle, efficient, nor, most importantly, intelligent.

These three things, the hybrid of which often was mistaken for professionalism, determined his character. Unlike wizards, he was a master of self-control and ice-cold civility. It would take more than one insolent, snotty witch or wizard to make him snap.

(Solvruk and Krakleg had made the point of loathed, dimwitted creature no. 12 moot by letting the wizard fall into a cursed vault.

After a long lunch break, over which they idly discussed the merits of classic satirist Poet Zulduk versus the dramatic modern Poet Šotek, those most ardent wizard-friends had even alerted Aurors that they had discovered a catatonic wizard in one of their vaults. How alarming!

On a totally unrelated note, Dirkrog had treated them to drinks every night for two weeks).

Dirkrog had honed his passive-aggression to sharp point. Now, the slightest glance from him could make any wizard feel ill at ease. Unfortunately, Dirkrog had just discovered an anomaly. When reviewed in retrospect, this creature had all the earmarks of catastrophe.

Dirkrog would later write up a list of things that in hindsight he oughtn't have said to one Steve King or 'Thteif' King, as the lispy and disgraceful-waste-of-flesh-and-dirge-of-civilisation pronounced it.

This list would include the hint that Zvezdnivezni ate unwelcome newcomers who would not learn to hold their tongues.

Due to some new construction of the lower vaults, he had been forced to slow the cart considerably. This meant that his passenger was no longer too winded to speak and resulted in a veritable diarrhea of words. Because the nincompoop was afflicted with some severe mental deficiency, he had taken Dirkrog's icy silence for rapt attention.

This. Was. Intolerable.

Dirkrog would not be mocked, not by fate, not by the gods-that-likely-weren't-but-perhaps-were-and-if-so-shitted-on-Dirkrog's-chances-of-happiness. He was an efficient goblin who was good at his job and he had not asked for any of this.

Assuming, generously, that the blabbering child didn't have soup for brains, Dirkrog had intimated that Zvezdnivezni did not appreciate the sound of human language. Assuming that this may be too subtle for the idiot, he had added, caustically, that the wraith dragon expressed this lack of appreciation by melting the flesh of those that produced such noise before gargling such miscreants whole down its massive, shimmering throat. It ate them bones and all.

The boy had stopped chattering about how 'cool' the labyrinth of mine shafts were, and Dirkrog had mistakenly thought that the child understood the severity of angry dragons. This reprieve lasted about 0.01 of a second, before the soft-headed imbecile's smile stretched wider and his eyes lit up in delight.

Dirkrog, for the first time in his life, felt nausea during a cart ride.

He told himself that he should have known that his optimistic nature would get the best of him, eventually. His estimation of the boy's mental capacity dropped from low into negatives.

"Oooooh! You mean a real dragon – and, and a wraith one?! Are its teeth as big as my arm? Can it fly through walls? Could it melt my bones with just a sneeze? Ano – I'm sorry," he paused sheepishly, ducking his head from where a rafter might have knocked some good sense into it and scratching white tufts. "I'm being rude. Is there something you would prefer to talk about?"

Dirkrog had looked at the boy steadily with his stoniest expression. He held the pause in which most souls would shrink back or drop their gaze, and for once the child seemed to pick up on that obvious cue, shuffling a little and fidgeting with the ties of his ratty cloak. The silly twit had twisted suddenly to one side, chest angled forward and eyes a little wide.

The minuscule pulsing of an eyebrow muscle preluded Dirkrog's flat tone:

"How long can you hold your breath?"

The twerp shrugged, gaze oozing disgusting amounts of earnestness. His hands kept attempting to brush down large finger-like lumps on the left side of his cloaked chest. A cart flew overhead and Dirkrog felt a sudden dull envy toward whichever goblin was in said cart because their passenger, surely, was merely another arrogant wizard _sitting in silence_.

"Practice," Dirkrog commanded coldly "_Now_."

'Thteif' looked at him curiously, before beaming. "Ano – okay!" His eyes crinkled into a smile that made Dirkrog briefly hallucinate rose-petals fluttering around him.

He blinked away the image, mildly horrified.

Their cart slipped past rows of ruby lanterns as he did. A trick of the light slanted the brat's eyes and pulled the shadows of his smile into a predatory smirk. Beneath the collar of his cloak, something stretched out gleaming golden fingers.

Then the white lanterns were back and 'Thteif's cheeks puffed out as the idiot actually attempted to hold his breath. Feeble-witted wizards, indeed.

Dirkrog felt an odd nagging due to the string of strange hallucinations, but decided these irregularities of vision were due to weariness and the hazards of dealing with the filth that was Wizardkind. Their inane chatter was enough to make any poor goblin's brain rot.

At least the boy had finally shut up.

Of course, it was then that physics and nature decided to flee the mortal plane.

The cart shuddered, sparks flying from the wheels. That...was not supposed to happen. Ever. That was impossible. The cart picked up speed, ignoring both Dirkrog's complete inner meltdown and his application of brakes.

Thteif's mouth flew open in a nonsensical yelp of "Yammeeeee" before the idiot's tone shifted suddenly to laughter in an oddly deep register. Something like static crawled up the back of Dirkrog's neck as the cart swerved in a u-turn, brakes shrieking but ineffectual. He clung to the levers for dear life. This was a terrible, abnormal day.

His stomach dropped when the cart flew off the tracks.

* * *

In the moments before death, they say you can see your life flash before your eyes.

Dirkrog saw no such thing. He hadn't believed such nonsense anyway, so it didn't surprise him in the slightest.

His heart had climbed into his throat and he was falling so fast his skin was retracting into his skull. Still, he was oddly calm. The only thing that disturbed him was the illogical manner of his death. Dirkrog was a rational goblin and he saw no reason to panic when it could result in nothing useful. Still, he was a rational goblin and knew that it was physically impossible for the cart to have reacted as it did. These carts were immune to human magic and nothing less than magic could have caused it to topple.

He forgot about the boy behind him entirely. In times like these, Dirkrog only remembered incidents and persons of importance.

He saw a shadow rise from the ground, black and shimmering. He saw it ripple like the wards on the lowest vaults. The impression of a palm and short, human fingers scalded his shoulder. Something golden and blinding exploded behind him.

Then the warping molasses-black shadow swallowed the cart, bones and all.

Dirkrog knew no more.

* * *

If anyone was wondering, originally I got Dirkrog's name from dørkrog, which is danish for a type of door-catch. When it comes to goblin I was just messing with a bit of Dansk, Bulgarian, Nordic, and Czech (hurrah for google translate!).

Zvezdnivezni is the phonetic Bulgarian word mush meaning star scales.

Solvruk is a mix of Danish and Bulgarian 'Solv' meaning silver in Dansk and 'ruka' meaning hand in Bulgarian. Krak is Bulgarian for 'leg', so I literally called that one legleg. Zulduk means goblin in Bulgarian and Sotek means goblin in Czech (I know, I know, goblins named goblin :P)


End file.
